How I Wasted Two Perfectly Good Hours

So there I was innocently reading blog posts last week in a spare moment before I got around to the main event of the day, and I forget what that was now. I subscribe by email to more blogs now because it makes them easy to read on my smart phone whenever some time opens up. It's all about time management isn't it? Read that somewhere.

Anyway, was reading Michele Simmons Lewis' lovely blog, Ancestoring's Ask A Genealogist, which you can find here: http://ancestoring.blogspot.com/
It's fresh, easy to read, delivered in small bite-sized pieces, and I always come away with new stuff I didn't know. So thanks a bunch, Michele!

Here's her blog post that got me going, the one about "Resources For Genealogy Books", which you can find at: http://ancestoring.blogspot.com/2012/12/resources-for-genealogy-books.html

I just love knowing about new resources, don't you? So go look at the page and scroll on down. See that link to all the genealogy stuff on eBay? Yeah, that's the rabbit hole I slid down last Thursday morning. I mean I just wanted to take a peak, but then it was the first time I'd visited eBay and seen all the things for auction and Buy It Now. So I had to browse, didn't I?

Two hours later I shook myself out of that online shopping stupor. Oh, golly. Maybe it wasn't a waste because now I know what's there as a resource, I told myself... but was I just kidding me?

I've done this before too. I have "wasted" hour upon hour browsing through records sets, especially on Fold3. Fold3 military records get me every time. I go to look something up and then am easily distracted by some shiny object of a records set.

So there it is: it's proven that I can easily waste time browsing. Or, I ask myself, is it useful because it does help in the learning process? I'm still new to all of this genealogy stuff so am guessing that the more exposure to more different types of records the better as we go along. But two whole hours? Just before Christmas?!!

Photo of the day from the Archive:

Cousin Steve, 1947
On Grandpop Williams' back porch,
Frostburg, Maryland

The URL for this post is:

Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are

Remember that call from Hide and Seek? I do and today I feel like I should be calling that to my ancestor, Capt. Jacob Whetstone (1738 - 1833). Have been parked on Fold3 all day digging into the Revolutionary War records to see what I can find.

Strangely, he's there in everyone elses pension files, mentioned in numerous letters of request, but there isn't one record indicating that he claimed a pension for himself! One would think that he would have.

And then I was having trouble finding service records for him too on Fold3. Oh, he's mentioned enough in the Pennsylvania "Blue Book of the War of the Revolution", so I know he was there. But am I not looking under the right heading or searching properly in order to find him?

Am thinking that I need to question his regimental assignment because I don't find Berks' County as a regiment or battalion... nor do I understand the difference. Much to learn here! I know that he was captain of the First Company and that he mustered under Colonel Daniel Hunter of Oley and "Colonel Undree (Utterly)". And that's the way it's stated in the Blue Book: Undree (Utterly)... and I don't know why.

Next I'll take another swat at Fold3 and after that I'll be on the Pennsylvania Archive's web site looking for him, especially in bounty land grant records.

As you can see the questions are popping up like little gremlins all around me at an alarming rate, and that's kinda scary! Wish me luck. And I'd love to hear from any of you who are enthusiasts about the formation of regiments and battalions and the like in the Revolution. Gosh, there's so very much I don't know. Well, that's the fun in this stuff.

Today's photo from Mom's Archive:

Joseph E. Whetstone (1816 - 1897), 1910

Grandson of Capt. Jacob Whetstone
and my GGF.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/03/come-out-come-out-wherever-you-are.html